Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) are oftentimes used to record data about the ambient environment. For example, drones can be used to record images or video of the ambient environment during flight. These conventional UAVs (e.g., consumer drones) are typically remotely operated by a user using vision-based methods, wherein the user either uses line of sight to the drone to control flight and/or avoid obstacles, or uses the video feed from the drone to control flight and/or avoid obstacles. However, both ambient environment data capture and vision-based remote user drone control can become problematic in low-light conditions.